Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Little Something For Me

Back in October, when I first saw the French Press Slippers on Ravelry, I fell head over heels in love with them. I decided to make myself a pair as soon as I finished my Christmas Knitting. Last Saturday I went stash diving and came up with some of Elann's Peruvian Sierra Aran (80% wool, 20% alpaca) in Atlantic Mist and cast on. They knit up very quickly and soon I was seaming them together (not difficult if you take a minute and pin the pieces together).

Yesterday I ran over to Mom and Dad's to felt them (they have a standard top loader, I have a high efficiency top loader) and got them all felted down to size. Now I'm trying to get them dry. Since it spent all afternoon and evening either snowing or raining here (yes, it snowed again), I decided to take drastic measures. I popped the slippers and straps onto a cookie sheet and preheated the oven to 225 degrees and when it had preheated, turned it off and stuck the slippers in. I've been shutting them in the oven and leaving them there for several hours before I pull them out and reheat the oven again. They are definitely more dry than they were yesterday, but there's still ways to go.

One thing I really like about this pattern is that the soles are shaped for right and left. I love the Fiber Trends felted slipper patterns, but I haven't seen one that involves a shaped sole yet. I think the shaping of the sole not only makes the slippers fit better, but also makes them look less clunky.

I've got to find some buttons today so I can sew the straps on as soon as I get them dry!

1 Comments:

I understand from reading various magazine articles that it's air flow rather than temperature that helps things dry. I usually set up a fan to blow across my dry-flat stuff, like knitting, to speed the process and it works a treat.